


so come on closer, don’t you wanna see inside my shell?

by thaliasgrace



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: M/M, except every time they say each other’s names it gets gayer, just two pals trying to recover and sort through their shit
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-03
Updated: 2019-08-07
Packaged: 2020-07-30 14:31:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20098735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thaliasgrace/pseuds/thaliasgrace
Summary: It’s the first year of freedom. It’s  the first year of California, of the Trojans, of Jeremy Knox.





	1. i was waiting for my fall to come

**Author's Note:**

> It’s been a while since I read the books, so if there are any inaccuracies, please feel free to point them out! (This also goes for any grammar / spelling / Google translated French errors too!)  
Fic title taken from ‘Ultraviolet’ by the Amazons.  
Enjoy!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from ‘ultraviolet’ by the amazons.

It starts like this. 

A bed that isn’t quite a hospital bed. Pain, pain everywhere. A nurse that Jean doesn’t know with gentle hands, a girl Jean does know with hands that are gentler still. “It’s okay,” she says, voice light and brilliant and the best thing he’s heard in a while. “You’re safe now.” 

He doesn’t believe her, but he’s close enough to it that it scares him. 

Or maybe it starts like this. An Exy court. His hands wrapped around the racquet. How old is he? He doesn’t know. Young. Young enough that the memory blurs a little around the edges. Still living in France. Still with a home. Still with two parents. 

(Not true. He still has two parents, except they sold him. So he doesn’t think it really counts.) 

Or maybe it starts like this: the feel of Riko Moriyama’s fist the first time he’s hit. 

Or maybe, maybe it starts like this. Jeremy Knox’s Golden Boy smile as he stands by his offensively cheerful truck with his offensively cheerful face. The truck isn’t yellow, like Jean half expected it to be, but it does have a little sticker on the back that’s shaped like a sun, one with sunglasses and a cheery smile and- to make everything so much worse- two thumbs up. Jeremy himself looks like he’s about to do some thumbs up too. If tries Jean might just punch him. 

As it is, he considers turning around and walking back to the airport. _Pick me up,_ he’d say to Renee. _Take me to the Foxes. I’ll work with Kevin, I’ll do whatever I need to do, but I can’t be here. _

Then he sees, right next to the sun, another sticker. An Exy stick. 

“Do you want me to put your bags in the car?” Jeremy asks. Jean just looks at him and thinks, _Surely that smile must hurt your face._

Jeremy picks up the bags anyway and starts to chatter on. He’s staying for the summer, he tells Jean. They’re sharing a room. 

“How was the flight, Jean?” He asks. “How do you like the weather in California, Jean? How do you _feel_, Jean?”

Jean slips sunglasses over his eyes and answers in short syllables, but that doesn’t stop Jeremy. When he realises that Jean isn’t interested in talking, he holds a conversation with himself, telling Jean about team members like Jean didn’t look them all up extensively before he came. 

Except the more Jean listens, the more confused he gets. Jeremy isn’t even talking about Exy anymore. He’s talking about his teammates, but he’s talking about them in a way Jean would never have spoken about any of the Ravens. He doesn’t describe weaknesses and strengths on the court, or who plays which position. He describes people’s personalities, their relationships, their likes and dislikes. 

When they arrive at their dorm, Jean pleads jet lag and lies, awake, in their room, staring at Jeremy’s bed and the wall of photos behind it until his eyes blur and he falls into a silent but not dreamless sleep. 

* * *

The first few days are a blur. Every day, Jean wakes up and it takes a moment for him to remember where he is. 

He has a list that he runs through every morning, a list of reminders. He lies still in bed, pretending to be asleep in case Jeremy, on the other side of the room, wakes up. 

_I am not in the Nest. I am not a Raven; I am a Trojan. I am in California. Riko is dead. I am free._

Free enough, anyway. 

At first, Jeremy doesn’t seem to know how to treat him. He chatters at him whilst Jean sits, unsure of what to do, what he’s supposed to be doing. He carefully avoids touching him. Jean thinks he’s called for advice from Kevin or Renee, because Jeremy doesn’t leave him alone. 

Good. Jean doesn’t really want to be around Jeremy, but if he left, he’d... He doesn’t know what he’d do. 

After a few days, Jeremy introduces him to a few other members of the team. Most aren’t staying for the summer. A few are only here for a few weeks before they travel somewhere else, but Jeremy seems determined to get Jean to meet some of the team before they vanish. 

Gwenllian Owen is the first. She’s tiny, just over five foot, and has a lilting Welsh accent and long nearly black hair. She’s sweet enough, Jean supposes, clearly the least threatening Trojan Jeremy could find. She isn’t staying for the whole summer, just the first week before she flies back home to Wales. Jeremy chatters at both of them, Gwenllian (“Just Gwen, please”) talking back in her soft, harmless voice. They joke around like they’re friends and not a captain and his subordinate. Jean spends more time watching the two of them and how they interact than anything, but he never really talks that much anyway, so Jeremy doesn’t seem to notice anything different. 

Laila McDermott and Sara Alvarez are the next people Jean meets. He thinks they’re the only other people staying for even a few weeks, because he can definitely tell that Gwen was a test run, a trial to see if he’d break down screaming. He doesn’t, and so Jeremy brings in two of the loudest people Jean has ever met. 

They’ve clearly been briefed about him, is the thing. They’re clearly trying to be calmer than normal and more relaxed and friendlier- not that they seem unfriendly at all, they’re fucking Trojans- and it’s just... It’s a lot. 

Laila hits Jeremy on the back at one point after he makes a joke, clearly playful, clearly something they do often without meaning it at all, and yet Jean leaves the room to sit in the bathroom, crouched down by the lip of the bathtub, trying not to hyperventilate. 

Jeremy knocks a few moments later. “Can I come in?” 

Jean doesn’t say anything, assuming Jeremy will come in anyway, but... But he doesn’t. He waits. 

Just like that, he’s shaking again. Privacy was never something he had in the Nest. Never something it occurred to him to want. 

“Come in,” he mumbles through clenched teeth, and Jeremy does. 

“You can tell me why you’re upset,” Jeremy says, closing the door softly behind him (Riko would have slammed it. Riko would have barged in regardless of whether Jean wanted him there or not.). “Or you can’t. I want to know why you’re upset, obviously, but if you don’t want to tell me, that’s okay. I won’t get mad.” 

Riko wouldn’t have given him a choice. 

Except maybe this is a ploy. Maybe Jeremy is luring him into a false sense of security. Maybe he’s saying that he’s giving Jean a choice because he wants to take it away later and make the loss even more painful. Maybe the choice is just designed to get him to trust Jeremy, to make him talk. 

If Renee was here, she would tell Jean to talk. 

Renee isn’t here. 

“I’m fine,” Jean says. His fingers are white-knuckled on the bathtub’s rim. Like that, you can see the scars even more clearly. He looks away, deliberate. “I’m coming back out.”

“You don’t have to,” Jeremy says, voice filled with concern. (Is it fake? Jean doesn’t know. He doesn’t know how to know. Riko was lots of things, but he never pretended to be anything other than awful.) “Laila and Alvarez can leave. They’ll understand.” 

“I said I’m fine.” 

Jean stands, pushes himself to his feet more like, and doesn’t look at his pale face in the mirror. He knows what he looks like- defeated, miserable, that fucking three taking up half his face. 

He doesn’t touch Jeremy when he leaves the bathroom. It’s almost funny, how Jeremy leans backwards to make sure they don’t brush hands in the cramped bathroom. 

Or it would be, if Jean didn’t know that Jeremy’s doing it for his sake, because Renee or Kevin or somebody told him that Jean doesn’t want to be touched. It could be funny how Jeremy’s nearly literally bending over backwards for him. 

(It’s going to all come crashing down soon. Nobody is this nice.) 

* * *

Later that night, as they’re getting ready for bed, Jean speaks for what must be the first time that isn’t a direct response to a question. “If McDermott had touched Riko like that...” He sucks in a breath. “She would be punished. Badly.” 

Jeremy frowns, clearly thinking back to that afternoon, to Laila’s friendly punch. He probably only remembers it because it happened just before Jean left- it seemed like the sort of thing they do a lot, casual affection. Then Jeremy relaxes his face with clear force of will, plasters on the sunny smile. “It’s not like that here,” he says firmly. “You’re not at the Nest anymore, Jean. You don’t ever have to go back. You’re safe now.” 

Safe. Jean is starting to hate that word.

Jean knows that it’s coincidence, that his near-meltdown in the bathroom was nothing to do with it, but he has his first meeting with the therapist the next day. She looks at him with pity in her eyes for the entire session. 

Jeremy drops him off. When Jean walks back into the parking lot, he’s still there, sitting in his truck and reading a well-worn paperback. When he sees Jean, he smiles, bright and easy. 

Jean can’t remember the last time he smiled. He thinks if he tried his face would crack in two. 

“How was it?” Jeremy says cheerfully. He’s always fucking cheerful. Jean, on the other hand, is always fucking miserable. 

Jean does his seatbelt, does his best to ignore the scars on his hands (they’re all he can see anyway). He considers not answering, and then decides against it. “Fine.” Then he considers. “When can we play Exy?”

In the Nest, Riko wouldn’t have allowed questions, but in the Nest Jean would already be playing by now. (_No_, Renee’s voice says serenely in his head, _you would be dead. It’s good that you got out when you did._) 

Jeremy looks startled. “Uh, well, the doctor’s visit is tomorrow. Depending on what she says and how you feel, well, we’ll see.” 

“How I feel?” Jean stares, incredulous. “_Toute cette équipe est une putain de blague_.”

Jeremy frowns. “I don’t speak French.” 

Jean doesn’t bother answering or providing a translation. He leans back in his seat and looks out of the window as Jeremy starts to talk about the book he’s reading, letting the empty chatter fill up the car.

* * *

Laila and Alvarez visit often. Gwen is gone, but dropped by to give them some chocolate chip cookies. Jean stares at them in fascination until Jeremy laughs. “She’s not going to have poisoned them,” he says, easy, then freezes. “Uh. I didn’t mean to be insensitive.” 

Jean considers pretending to be upset, just to see how Jeremy reacts, then decides against it. He’s too tired, and half of him is convinced all Jeremy needs is one small push to lash out. It doesn’t matter that all evidence is to the contrary, that every night on the phone Renee tells him Jeremy’s a good guy.  _ He’s friendly,  _ she says.  _ He wants to help you.  _

“Nobody ever poisoned me,” Jean says. “I’ve never been poisoned.” 

“Nobody’s ever poisoned me, either,” Jeremy says, only slightly awkward. This is the point where, if Jean was normal, he’d laugh. As it is, he rolls his eyes and leaves to make his nightly phone call with Renee. 

* * *

The next day, they go to the doctor’s office and Jean comes back out- well, he isn’t smiling. He doesn’t think his mouth remembers the shape of a smile. But he’s closer than he’s ever been. “I can play,” he tells Jeremy in the car. Jeremy looks at him for a long moment, like he’s considering going back into the doctor’s office to check. Jean honestly can’t blame him. Too much more of this- this _inactivity_ and he’d be going fucking insane. He’d probably lie to Jeremy to get back on the court if this went on for much longer. 

“Okay,” Jeremy says eventually. “Okay. You can play again. This is good news, right? You’re happy?” 

_Happy_. Jean turns the word over in his mind. Is this what happiness feels like? He doesn’t think so, but it feels closer than normal. “_Oui_,” he tells Jeremy. Then he pauses. “When can we play?” 

“Uh,” Jeremy says, caught mid smile so that his teeth are prominent, as perfect and gleaming as the rest of him. California’s golden boy. “Now, I guess? We’ll have to go back to the room and get gear, but-“ 

“Okay,” Jean says, and just like that- it’s back. Exy is back. 

_You’re happy?_ Jeremy asks over and over in his head. 

He doesn’t know why he keeps thinking about it. You don’t need to be happy to play Exy, after all. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> jean’s french in the car is ‘this team is a fucking joke.’


	2. will you still love this incomplete?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Exy is familiar. Jeremy Knox is not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title taken from a misheard lyric from ‘honey sweet’ by blossoms.

On the Exy court, everything feels exactly the same as it did when he was with the Ravens. Jean finds that slightly comforting and slightly scary. The feel of the racquet is the same in his hands, the helmet is the same heavy weight, and the feel of it is the same, the way he always feels more of himself when he’s in his Exy kit on a court. More _Jean_. 

Except everything is also different. He isn’t in Raven black; he’s in Trojan red. Riko isn’t here, Jeremy is. He’s not injured- in fact, he thinks this is the least injured he’s been on an Exy court in years- and every step he takes isn’t painful. The Ravens aren’t here; it’s just him and Jeremy on the court, Laila and Alvarez due to arrive in about half an hour. 

Everything the same and everything different.

Because, of course, he’s bad. It’s embarrassing how easily Jeremy runs circles around him. “It’s okay,” Jeremy says after twenty minutes, when it’s clear that Jean’s getting increasingly frustrated. “You haven’t practised in- what? Two months, give or take? And, anyway, you’re still not in top physical condition.” 

“I’m in better physical condition than you. You haven’t practised since I’ve been here,” Jean says, then catches himself. If he was with Riko- 

He’s not. Jeremy laughs, open and sunny and brilliant. “I’m in solidarity with your injuries, Jean.” 

“Solidarity doesn’t need to mean McDonalds twice a week,” Jean responds. When Jeremy doesn’t hit him, he adds: “And I don’t even have the McDonalds, so don’t use me as an excuse.” 

Jeremy’s eyes are gleaming as he takes off his helmet, shaking his hair out. For a moment Jean’s afraid, and then Jeremy’s grinning again, wider than Jean’s ever seen it. He didn’t even know humans could smile that widely. He certainly can’t. Jean watches in fascination as Jeremy laughs again. “It’s my summer holiday.” 

“And you’re the captain of the Trojans. Shouldn’t you be leading by example?” 

Jeremy’s eyes glitter. “So you admit you’re a Trojan.” 

Just like that, Jean’s brief not quite a good mood is gone. “I’m wearing the gear, aren’t I? Although I don’t think red’s my colour.” 

Jeremy looks him up and down, still smiling. “It suits you far better than black ever did.” Then his smile turns slightly sharper, the smile he wore when he declared on television _he just won’t be back in black_. It’s not quite dangerous- Jean doesn’t think Jeremy knows how to be dangerous- but it’s as close as California’s Golden Boy will ever get.

Jean knows the smile isn’t intended for him- it’s _protective_ of him, even- but he still pulls his helmet lower on his face and goes to collect an errant ball, a clear signal to Jeremy that their conversation is finished.

But even as he comes back, he feels a tiny spark of hope. If he’d made a joke like- well, like any of the jokes he’d just made to Jeremy- he’d be lying on the floor right now having his teeth kicked in. 

Jeremy doesn’t seem to care. Maybe it’s an act- maybe when they get back to their room, there’ll be trouble. 

But Jean doesn’t think there will be, and that scares him a little. (Or a lot.)

* * *

He tells Renee on the phone later. Jeremy is in the kitchen, bustling around and making tea or watering plants or channeling the sun into his smile or whatever it is he does in his free time. Jean can see him through the door, but they can’t really hear each other, so it’s perfect. He’s alone but not alone. Privacy without the panic. 

“If I’d said what I said to Jeremy to Riko,” Jean starts. He pauses, looks at Jeremy in the kitchen. “They’re very different.” 

“That’s good.” Renee’s voice is as comforting as ever. “Riko was a monster, Jean. Jeremy is a good person.” 

“Right,” he responds through numb lips. Jeremy turns around in the kitchen, smiles when he sees that Jean is looking at him, and gives him a quick thumbs up. 

Even two days ago that would have made Jean want to punch him. Now... Now he still isn’t that keen on the thumbs up, but he thinks it’s bearable. He could live with it, he thinks. He _is_ living with it. 

* * *

Laila and Alvarez are leaving for two weeks. Visiting Laila’s parents, Jeremy says. 

He sounds and looks slightly wistful, and it makes Jean anxious. “Do you want to go?” he asks. He hadn’t really thought about what Jeremy was giving up. Surely he has a family too, or at least people he’d like to stay with. People who aren’t Jean, Jean the broken, Jean the Raven. (_Not a Raven_, he thinks. _A Trojan, now_.) 

“What?” Jeremy asks. When he turns and faces Jean where they sit on the couch, his face is back to its usual expression of bland cheerfulness. Jean doesn’t know exactly what it was before, not really, but he knows that he’d like to see it again. He doesn’t think it’s the real Jeremy Knox, but he thinks it’s closer than the Golden Boy version Knox puts out. “What do you mean, do I want to go?” 

“You must have family,” Jean says. “You must not want to be stuck here with me all summer.” 

“I’m not stuck,” Jeremy says, looking a little perplexed. “Jean, I’m happy to be here. I’m happy to be helping you.” 

Helping? Jeremy is doing more than help and they both know it. Him and Renee are piecing Jean back together from the shattered remains of what Riko left behind. 

“Don’t do that with your face,” Jean says before he can think better of it. 

“Do what?” 

“That.” Jean wrinkles his nose, frustrated. “You can be honest with me. You don’t need-“ Then he cuts himself off. He knows what he wants to say- that Jetemy doesn’t need to wear a mask around him- but he doesn’t know how to say it in a way that means Jeremy won’t get angry with him. Although, as he keeps reminding himself, Jeremy isn’t Riko. Maybe he wouldn’t be angry, but that doesn’t mean that he would understand. “Never mind,” is all he says, and they leave it at that.

* * *

They go down to the Exy court every day. They practice down there for as long as they can stand on their legs for, and then, if they can be bothered, they run together, or they go to the gym. If they can’t be bothered they have pancakes and watch some new movie or TV show that is, according to Jeremy, “a classic”. Jean doesn’t ask about Jeremy’s family again. He doesn’t even know if he has one. 

It feels like the sort of thing he _should_ know. He knows Jeremy’s entire Exy history, knows his stats on the court off by heart, but he realises that he knows painfully little about his roommate’s personal life. 

He doesn’t know why he _wants_ to know. In the Nest, nobody had _personal lives_. Privacy is a foreign concept to Jean, so maybe that’s it. Maybe he just finds it strange that people have secrets out here in California. 

Maybe it’s that, despite himself, he’s actually starting to like Jeremy Knox. Maybe he’s starting to think of him as a friend.

* * *

Jean’s been in California for a month and a half the first time he wakes Jeremy up. He’s having a nightmare, but that’s nothing new. He has nightmares every night.

In the dream, he’s back in the Nest. He didn’t call Renee- or maybe he did, maybe he did and Riko found out. Either way, Riko is alive, Jean is trapped again, and Riko is furious. 

It’s a dream, but the pain still feels real. 

When Jean wakes up, Jeremy is hovering over him, one hand outstretched like he’s debating whether or not to touch him. When he sees that Jean is awake, he withdraws so fast he nearly falls flat on his back. 

“So graceful,” Jean says into the silence, more to distract Jeremy- and himself- than anything else. “Sometimes I still can’t believe you’re Captain.” 

He’s acting casual, but his breaths are coming hard and fast, and he can feel his hands shaking. He sits up, letting the covers drop from his shoulders. Part of him wants to go to the bathroom, to press his head on the cool tiles on the floor and lock himself away from Jeremy. He also feels slightly like he might be sick. But he knows that if he does that, Jeremy would go out of his mind with worry. (He doesn’t know why that matters, but it does.) 

“Jean,” Jeremy says. His eyes are wide. “You were screaming.” 

Screaming. That’s new. Or Jean assumes it is, anyway. Jeremy has never woken up before. 

“How often does this happen?” 

There’s a pause as Jean debates how honest to be. “Often enough.” 

“How have I never woken up before?” 

Jean’s hands are still shaking as he runs his hands through his hair. He closes his eyes for a moment, tries to gather himself together. It isn’t really working, but just the sight of Jeremy helps. Everything about him is so different to the Nest that it’s easily to believe that he isn’t there. _Because you aren’t_, he tells himself. _You aren’t there, and Riko is dead, and you are fine._

He doesn’t feel fine. He’s forgotten what Jeremy asked, just knows that he asked a question. “Can you open the blinds, please?” Jean asks. “Or turn the light on, or something.” 

Jeremy turns the light on, and the room is suddenly awash in golden light. Jean blinks. Jeremy is still crouched on the floor, his hair messy, wearing a shirt and some tracksuit bottoms (Trojan red and gold, of course) and he looks... More anxious than he should. 

“Stop looking at me like that,” Jean says tiredly. His heart is racing, but finally his hands are starting to still. He chants over and over in his head- _Riko is dead. Riko is dead. You are safe_. 

“I’m not looking at you like anything.” 

“Sure,” Jean says. Then: “The dreams don’t happen often.” It’s a lie, and, from the looks of him, Jeremy knows that it’s a lie, but he doesn’t push it. Good, because if he did, Jean doesn’t know what he’d do. 

“If you want to wake me up, you can,” Jeremy says slowly. “Any time. I want to help you, Jean.” 

Jean shouldn’t believe him, but he does. The thought doesn’t scare him like it would have two weeks ago. “Thank you,” he says, and means it. 

Jeremy climbs back into bed, this time facing Jean. He looks worried, and Jean wishes he wouldn’t, so he flicks the light switch off so he can’t see Jeremy’s face anymore. 

It doesn’t really help. He can still hear Jeremy’s breathing, no longer the deep even breaths of a sleeping man, and he can hear the way Jeremy tosses and turns throughout the night. 

It’s a novel feeling, being worried about. Jean doesn’t know how he feels about it yet, but he doesn’t think he’s angry, at least.  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this fandom is lowkey dead lmao. @ Nora, please write a jerejean spin off and revive us.


End file.
